Week One, Pt 2: Kalani Goes for Two
I love Kalani Sitake. I'm telling you now, he's on my Mount Rushmore. Charlie Weis, Ed Orgeron, Post-NFL Steve Spurrier, and Kalani Sitake. Your Mount Rushmore of college football personalities you can't live without, but would never want above a position group coaching level on your team.
The 2016 version of the Holy War belonged to Kalani Sitake. The guy had his players pumped and ready to go. The guy pulled the first ever MLB manager-style calculated outburst to get a 15-yard penalty that would move the Utah offense closer to their kryptonite, the Red Zone, and it worked like a charm with an interception + unsportsmanlike conduct call on his team on the very next play. Kalani then had the kahunas to go for 2 after closing the score to 20-19, which considering the fact that Utah's offense had been able to put it in the endzone once all day and the Utes ball security had been as reliable as a Carnival Cruise, was most definitely a "big balls" call. Even ballsier was to call an empty backfield QB draw against one of the best defensive lines in college football who also happened to be sending their linebackers on an all-out blitz. BYU's 35-year old quarterback Taysom Hill took the snap, got hammered by the blitzing Utes, stayed on his feet just long enough for Cougs nation to have one last hope of ending the half-decade of defeat, before being corralled by the rest of the Utes and delivering Utah its sixth straight Holy War win.
- Quick Hits from the experience inside Rice-Eccles Stadium:
Early Arrivals (for the schools west of the mississippi) - I'll readily admit that fans west of the Mississippi aren't exactly known for their prompt arrival. My wife and I went to our first game together during her first year out of college. We arrived about 5 minutes before kickoff and when the kicker ran out onto the field after the coin toss, she asked me, "why are we trying a field goal already?" 4 years of UCLA games and zero kickoffs, and I guarantee you that isn't unusual on the best coast. Which is why I was pretty surprised to see Rice-Eccles about 97% full at kickoff. Out of respect for everyone's prompt arrival, BYU made sure no one regretted leaving that last wounded soldier in the parking lot and threw a pick-six on the Holy War's first play from scrimmage.
Standing Room Only means Standing Room Only - After monitoring ticket prices for a solid month leading up to the Holy War, I eventually decided to just pull the trigger on a standing room only ticket. I figured it would at least give me a good vantage point to take a cover photo for the blog and I could just grab one of the unfilled seats at the end of the first quarter. Nuh, nuh, nuh, not today, junior! When Rice-Eccles says they sell out, they are sold out. Every single seat was filled and people were 2-deep in the standing room only sections at the top of the stadium. Luckily, since the stadium only fits some 50 thousand people, there really aren't too many seats in the house, and even standing at the top of the stadium, you don't feel all that removed from the action. It's a really dynamite venue for a football game.
Who wore it best?
O-riginal Entrance - The undoubtedly best mascot in the Pac-12 is the Oregon Duck. For quite a while now, the Oregon Duck leads the Ducks out of the tunnel while riding on a motorcycle, its a little over the top, but theres little about Oregon athletics nowadays that is not. For some reason, Utah decided that the same Owl mascot wandering the tailgate lot, who one fan finally informed me was named Swoops, should lead the Utes out into battle. Not to say that multiple schools cant have similar entrances, after all, like half the country comes out through some dry ice storm and thinks they'll start playing like early 90s Miami, but having the same ridiculous entrance as your conference foe seems a little wanting, and frankly, based on how impressive the rest of the Utah football experience is, I'm sure they can do better. My recommendation would be to simulate the Iceland soccer chant, it'd be tough to pull off a lot of places in college football land, but MUSS, FUSS, and the rest of Ute nation - I believe in you.
Tell me this wasn't more intimidating than an owl riding a motorcycle?
Athletic Student Section - Speaking of the MUSS (the Mighty Utah Student Section), thanks to Utah being Under Armour's first venture out west, the student section t-shirts are full UA heatgear, specifically designed to ensure that no overzealous Utah undergrad, whether 12 beers or 4 diet cokes deep, now allowed apparently, has any arm movement restriction when they go to throw up their "block U."
Final Thought
Utah has a special gameday experience going. Beyond the unique tailgating machines, the picturesque on-campus venue, and super easy access from downtown SLC, Utah cares about its Utes. Unlike Seattle, Arizona, Palo Alto, Berkeley, and even now, LA, there is no other game in town. There's the Utes and the Cougs and those are the only games that matter when the leaves start to fall. It obvious from the moment you land in Salt Lake that the community is crazy about their team and with crews like the tailgaters I met, it's easy to see why the experience is only going to get greater now that the under-the-radar Utes have a reserved place at the table of big-time college football.
